Chemists discover unexpected enzyme structure
Many microbes have an enzyme that can convert carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide. This reaction is critical for building carbon compounds and generating energy, particularly for bacteria that live in oxygen-free environments. This enzyme is also of great interest to researchers who want to find new ways to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and turn them into useful carbon-containing compounds. Current industrial methods for transforming carbon dioxide are very energy-intensive. “There are industrial processes that do these reactions at high temperatures and high pressures, and then there’s this enzyme that can do the same thing at room temperature,” says Catherine Drennan, an MIT professor of chemistry and biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. “For a long time, people have been interested in understanding how nature performs this challenging chemistry with this assembly of metals.” Drennan and her colleagues at MIT, Brandeis University, and Aix-Marseille University in France have now discovered...